


Doubly Damned

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2000-08-15
Updated: 2000-08-15
Packaged: 2018-11-20 19:59:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11342238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Krycek visits Skinner shortly after the events of ep "S.R. 819" and they "renew" their relationship





	Doubly Damned

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Doubly Damned by Garnet

TITLE: Doubly Damned  
AUTHOR: Garnet  
FANDOM: XF  
PAIRING: Skinner/Krycek  
RATING: NC17 (but of course)  
FEEDBACK: (please, please, pretty please...)  
ARCHIVE: RatB, Basement, all others please ask and likely it will be granted  
DISCLAIMER: Oh yah, youbetcha--not mine, yadda yadda, long sigh  
SUMMARY: Krycek visits Skinner shortly after the events of ep "S.R. 819" and they "renew" their relationship  
WARNINGS: Not safe sex, by any means. Graphic as all heck. Hey, hey, hey.  
SPOILERS: SR819 of course, Tunguska/Terma aftermath (one arm boy)

* * *

    Doubly Damned  
    by Garnet

    I said nothing. But then that was how it had been between us for a long time--even before that last day of legitimacy--and I, for one, wasn¹t inclined to break it. A word could destroy everything, could bring a whole rush of other words in its wake. Could awaken accusation. Hurt. Anger. Blame. 

    Hatred. And I had quite enough of that already to go around.

    Not that what we had done together had been all that legit anyway in the first place. Not officially and certainly not unofficially. An Assistant Director of the FBI simply did not sleep with the agents under his command, let alone those of the same sex. Let alone one who had turned out to be a wolf in sheep¹s clothing. It would have ruined his career. Could still ruin his career, what was left of it anyway, if it was ever found out. If anyone ever caught on.

    It had happened every couple of weeks in the beginning and now it happened every few months. Never less than two, never more than six, except for that long period of time I¹d spent in Mother Russia trying to recover from the latest escapade the most troublesome of the man¹s other agents had dragged me along on. Still, if I wanted to try to pinpoint just when things began to change, I would have pointed to just then. To that evening that I turned up on the man¹s doorstep--still hollow-cheeked and shaky, uncertain of the time after my long trip and even less certain of my welcome--and was waved in, as usual, without a word. Without a single change of expression on the face in front of me or in the brown eyes behind those fragile wire-frame glasses.

    No, instead, the other man¹d stood back and invited me in to stand in almost exactly the same spot where I had stood over half a year ago, when the man before me had grabbed me and shook me and snarled at me and punched me full in the stomach. But that had been that man and that man was not this man. That man had been Assistant Director of the FBI, Walter S. Skinner, proper and exacting and firm and afire with a not terribly unjustified rage. This man, the one who had turned away from me to go and fill a glass with two fingers worth of his best whiskey, neat, the way I always drank it, had no name. Had no voice. Kept all his emotions, all his reactions, buried deeply inside. All his reactions but one.

    The only one I was interested in. The one I came back for time and again, despite all better judgment and reason.

    I had taken the glass offered at the time and thrown it back, only to instantly regret it as the room swayed around me. Swayed and spun and turned a mute and unforgiving shade of black. When I¹d come back to myself, I¹d found myself being held to a broad chest, being half-carried, half-guided towards the sofa. And I¹d instinctively resisted, foolishly tried to twist away from them, from him, only to have those arms tighten around me--pain sparking through the still-tender scars on what was left of my arm--clearly not about to let me go. Not in this incarnation, anyway.

    They¹d pressed me down into the cushions then, pressed me flat and covered me up with the blanket off the back of the couch, and then abandoned me again as the man moved away. Picked up the glass I¹d dropped and set it back on the bar, before disappearing into the kitchen beyond. The sounds of him puttering around had been mockingly comfortable, hurting a little with the sheer domesticity of it, and almost seemed to trap me there, waiting and watching and shivering a little. Wondering if I¹d finally made my last mistake. If I¹d gone too far. Or simply not far enough.

    But the man¹s face had given nothing away when he¹d finally emerged, a large mug steaming in his grip. A bright yellow mug with a happy face on one side and a sad one on the other; it didn¹t suit him at all and somehow that made it minutely better. If only for a moment or two. Long enough for him to help me sit back up, to re-wrap the blanket around my shoulders, being extra careful of the left one as if it was something he¹d practiced almost, and then put the mug in my one remaining good hand. And the other man¹s expression remained bland, unassuming, as he sat down next to me on the sofa and gazed out across the room as I slowly drank down the hot chicken broth I¹d been given. Half grateful and half resentful for the damn stuff. For his consideration. His thoughtfulness.

    Perhaps the older man¹d been looking at nothing. Perhaps he¹d been looking out at the city, or the balcony where he¹d once forced me to spend a cold and miserable night. Or that part of him had, anyway, the part that hated my guts. The part that didn¹t care if I lived or died as long as I got what was coming to me.

    And I¹d briefly wished that I could ask. That we could talk. About this, at least. 

    But I¹d said nothing. Only drank my soup like the good little boy that I wasn¹t and watched the other man not looking at me and listened to him breathing, slow and sure and steady as always, and found myself wanting as I always wanted. The hard truths, the only real thing left to me anymore, careless of doubts and fear--the truth of mouth and skin and flesh and fingers, of steel and heat and pain and pleasure and submission to it all, to that fleeting and exquisite moment or two of sheer nothingness that came after and allowed for nothing else. That ate the last bits of me away, my name, my life, my memories, and granted me peace for a few infinitely precious minutes. An effect that lingered at the fringes of the man I forced to be the rest of the time and made me to be able to get through another few months relatively intact. Marginally sane, at least.

    Yeah, if I had to point a finger to it, it had been that night. When I had been offered comfort instead of copulation. When I had been forced to submit to concern--remote and mystifying as it was--rather than the hard cock I¹d grown to want, to need. Though that had been there, too. I had been able to see it, the outlines of the other man¹s desire and equal need, pressing up against the front of his jeans. Could almost smell it coming off of him, even over the scent of the chicken soup. I well knew that smell. I had worn it home when I¹d had a home to go to. Had worn it back to seedy motel after seedy motel. Even, once, and that had been truly stupid, to a meeting with my own employer. Not that the bastard should have been able to smell the scent of sex on me over the clinging miasma of his own addiction.

    That had been the night I¹d been ordered to commit murder. Not that they ever used words like that. Ever spoke so directly. But I knew what they meant and what it meant to kill the man I¹d been sent to kill. That I¹d been sent to stop from spilling it all, bloody secret after bloody secret, to the man he¹d thought was his son. Lies and lies, that¹s all it was. All it ever was. Small wonder that Mulder¹d never found his truth; it didn¹t exist anymore. They¹d killed it as they¹d killed so many through their experiments, their policies, killed and maimed and mutilated. As I¹d been killed and maimed and mutilated.

    Both inside and out.

    No words between us. And, this one time, no sex. Just a bed and clean, soft sheets and arms warm around me the rest of the night. Long into the morning, when the older man should have been gone. Should have transformed into that other man and been at work and continuing that fight for law and order and the power to hold it all together for just another day, another month, another year.

    Like sandbagging the ocean, but you could never tell him that. And he¹d never believe you, even if he knew he should.

    And, while he had me, while he was on top of me, in me, I could ignore the flood, too. The destruction I knew was coming. The choices I¹d made and the one¹s I knew I¹d have to make in the future. What my life had become and what it hadn¹t and how much I hated one and longed for the other. Even if it meant I were as blind as that long-haired and beautiful bitch on the pedestal with her sword and scales and penchant for maddeningly black and white solutions.

    What she never got was that things weren¹t just black or white, one thing or the other. Mostly, they were shades. Fleeting chancy things that you couldn¹t quite get ahold of, let alone try to keep. To hold to yourself. To hold onto.

    Because, sometimes, and that hurt the worst, it all split right down the middle. Left you bleeding and lonely and broken, with half of yourself on one side and half on the other. Like someone had taken that big old blind sword of justice and sliced so quick and fast that it didn¹t hurt at all at the time. Only later. When the resultant sting would like to drive you mad. The pain reaching so deep there was no way in hell to ever hope to balance on the edge. If you even knew how to. If you ever had.

    But I never even had the chance to try--I fell right over. Fell right down. My fingertips catching at the last on the only thing left to keep from the depths below, catching on a man who had his own problems with balance. Who also know that razor¹s edge. Cutting himself deeply on that merciless blade over all the compromises he¹d made and been forced to make. And the ones he hadn¹t and what they had cost him.

    Oh, I¹d cost him. And I¹d hurt him. Never doubt that. But never so personally before. So directly. Getting in a few chops in a stairwell has nothing on this. On holding a man¹s life in the palm of your hand.

    I¹d hate it if it were me in his place.

    I do hate it. Though the pain they¹ve put me through--and that they use sometimes to control me, to haul me back to their tender embraces--is not physical pain. At least, not entirely. They have no little black box for me. They don¹t need it. Not anymore. I¹ve got nowhere else to go. Nowhere to hide. No one who gives a damn.

    Except maybe the man who¹d held me once and kept me safe all the night, from memories and nightmares and fears and regrets, some of which he also shared. Some of which I¹d done to him. Or had him do to me.

    I hadn¹t wanted to do this to him. To hold this over him. But I can¹t tell him that. He either already knows it or he wouldn¹t believe me, anyway. 

    So I said nothing. Even as he opened the door and found me there, yet again. Only hours after I¹d made my threats and my promises--their threats and promises--in the back of his car. My finger on the button. My heart in my throat. 

    His eyes cold and resigned and tired all at once and mine...

    Empty as I could make them.

    So I said nothing, even as I wondered if this had finally proved too much. The last betrayal. The one thing neither he or I could live with.

    Said nothing as his eyes met mine, one long moment, two, cold and unforgiving and breathlessly sharp, and then dropped a little. Staring at nothing in particular, even as he moved back to let me come in.

    Then caught me by my right arm, my real arm, as I walked past him and spun me right around and crushed harsh lips to mine. Stole my breath of surprise and drank it right down, as if it were his right. His necessity. His only remaining chance at conquest.

    I fought him; I couldn¹t help myself. But then he spoke, finally and absolutely, grinding the words directly into my mouth, fingers digging into my flesh. Hard and harsh and hopelessly. Doubly damned and half in sorrow.

    "God...Alex, please don¹t...stay..."

    So I did it. I caught his face between warm flash and cold plastic, caught it and held it for my own. For my own lips to beg, to plead, to promise.

    "Always..." Knowing the whole time he would hear what I didn¹t, what I couldn¹t say--as long as I can, as much as I¹m able, until my death or his or until the whole world comes crashing down around our ears as it always seems on the verge of lately. Most probably because people try like hell to make it black and white and nothing and no one can survive like that, not and not shatter under the pressure.

    I had shattered a long time ago and was still tearing myself on the pieces, when I wasn¹t slicing others with them as well. Huge glistening shards of glass, bright as any tear. Bright as blood.

    Bright as the other man¹s eyes as he pulled back slightly from me and stole the last of my breath away with nothing more than a glance. But then he¹d always been able to take what he wanted from me. And I let him, time and time again, as if I had no choice in the matter, no voice of my own. It was an illusion, of course, but it was my illusion.

    "Skinner," I said, then almost wished the word back as a frown stitched itself across his face. He¹d broken first--said my name, severed the fragile silence of our truce--but maybe it hadn¹t meant the same thing to him as it had to me. In that moment, I could almost see the other man staring out at me, the man who hated me, who would just as soon take a fist to me as look at me, and a sharp thread of fear tangled around my lungs, knotted in my stomach.

    He blinked then and the impression faded. But, still, he asked, "Why?" No accusation, no anger, just a simple question, pure and clean. As if I had ever known anything to be pure and clean.

    I wanted to shrug, to throw off some snide response, a caustic comment, something guaranteed to hurt him and save myself, but I couldn¹t. Not while staring into those brown eyes, into the face of the man who fucked away all my worst nightmares, who¹d held me once when I couldn¹t bear any more pain.

    Who drank from the same cup I drank from and suffered the pangs of the poisonous wine that lay within, icy-sweet, numbing even as it destroyed.

    "Did you think," I said at the last, hardly whispering it. "That you were alone in all this? That there was ever...a choice? For any of us?"

    His head came up a little. Just a touch, but the light flashed across his glasses, blinding me to his eyes, the nuances of his expression.

    "Yes," was all he said, but it was more than enough. More than I could deal with in that instant.

    The knotted threads turned to wire--barbed and cruel--and I winced away from them, from him. Turned to go, even though I had just promised not to. But he moved in close and caught me again, held me fast, but with gentle fingers this time, not harsh. More fingertips than anything else, blunt and strong. And I knew those hands, their power, their uses. They had trapped me time and again and torn pleasure from a place so deep inside me that it feared that same pleasure as much as it desired it.

    To be taken. To be mastered. Murdered by ecstasy and so to fly free from it all, if only for one slender moment.

    "Please..." This time it was my turn to beg, and he responded to the tone if not exactly to the plea. His head moved down and I could see his eyes again, forced myself to stand absolutely still as they searched mine, hardly daring to breathe.

    "Yes," he said again, but this time the word didn¹t hurt as much.

    His hand slid up and around, cupped the back of my neck. Brought me in for another kiss, something almost soft this time. Almost. I had to admit it was sweet, though. So sweet and warm that I lost the ability to breathe again, if I¹d ever truly regained it.

    Just for this. No thoughts, no fears, no past, no future. Just for this, I came. And didn¹t want to think about that either--how much I had grown to need this, to need him. It was stupid, dangerous, silly, but there you go.

    I moaned straight into his mouth and that hand on my neck tightened hard enough to bruise. His cock was bruising, too, as he pushed it into my hipbone, a steely motion, insistent, demanding. Evidence of his own need and I couldn¹t get enough of it, could never quite imagine the reality of it when I was alone no matter how hard I tried.

    Fleetingly, I thought of the man¹s bed--oversized and comforting, sheets and pillows that always smelled faintly of him--and then of his couch, but we never made it to either. Barely made it to the rug in front of the coffee table. My clothes didn¹t. They lay, tangled around his own and my fake arm, strewn across half the floor.

    And that had been a deliberate submission, too. To let him touch me there, strip me of yet another of my protections. My necessities. He had hesitated the first time, as if looking for permission of some kind, but now he did it almost casually. Carefully, but casually. Not wanting to hurt me until he wanted to hurt me.

    �Cause it always hurt. Physically, yes, to a greater or lesser extent depending on how much time he took with me beforehand, how much lubrication--the man wasn¹t small by any means--but also in other ways. It hurt to be pinned, to be made small, helpless to a greater strength and purpose. And yet the craving for it never quite went away, the desire for the places it always took me to eventually. Though, always at the pace that he chose, that he set, whether I struggled with it or against it. With him or against him. Myself.

    I didn¹t struggle this particular night, not now anyway. Not anymore. That was done with, at least for a little while. A few hours anyway, maybe the night if I was lucky. If he would give and forgive me that much. The man who had killed him once already, just yesterday. Who just might have to do it again, for good this time, if he didn¹t cooperate. If he didn¹t let them drag him off his precarious perch, down into the dark below. Where I lived most of the time. If you could call it that.

    I didn¹t.

    I doubted he would either, not this man or even the one who hated me, the one who¹d done the things they imagined he deserved their little toys for. Even though they were one and same and yet...not.

    I sucked down another moan as his hands both soothed and tormented me. His mouth. His skin on mine, hot-slick over heavy muscle and bone. His warm breath whispering across my face, down my neck, hands following, pinching, stroking, caressing. Teeth impressing themselves into my flesh, as if he could mark me as I¹d marked him.

    Usually, he wanted me on my stomach, but this time he simply lifted my legs and slipped between them. Our cocks clashing, my hips arching up out of my control as he slid a finger down to hitch across hidden and sensitive skin. Familiar territory to him by now, he took quick possession. And, this time, when I arched up it was for pain, for the slow inexorable pressure of one of those large blunt fingers fitting itself up inside me. It didn¹t hurt as much as it once had, with or without the lube, but it made me realize that I was still tense. Or maybe the word terrified would have been better. Not that he had turned me away tonight, but he had yet to turn me inside out.

    He still might punish me, for the wrong reasons as much as the right.

    When a second finger joined the first, I looked up and saw him looking down at me. Warm eyes in a severe face, unreadable and yet entirely too transparent. At least to me, the man who lay beneath him, bound to him by blood and suffering and the dreadful convulsions of fate. By two fingers up my ass and the promise of more, that great weeping cock that I had learned to rely on. 

    I closed my eyes, then opened them again. Ruthlessly tried to force myself relax into the moment, to fall between the cracks of what lay between us. To let it all go, or at least to put my first foot on the road that led there.

    But, instead, the memory of him on that hospital bed abruptly flashed through my mind, this powerful man brought down, dying, surrounded only by strangers. All but one. All but one. And I only there to witness his degradation, his death. His subjugation to my own keepers.

    At least my hands hadn¹t been entirely impersonal as they worked to kill him, even though they should have been. Another awful convulsion of fate that, in a way, I had been the only true mourner at the funeral, short-lived as it was. Mourner and murderer in one.

    A hand touched my face, feather-light, and I realized that I¹d turned away from him, was trembling slightly. He bent down over me and now both hands were on me, capturing me, claiming me. Lifting me up into his hard body, to his determined lips. And, this time, he gave breath back to me, perhaps the same breath I¹d given him--that first shockingly keen and roaring rush of returning life and consciousness, implacable and addictive. My own, my only, hand crept around to his back and then I was holding him, too. Holding on as tightly as I could stand to.

    I wanted to speak to him again then, but there were no words for what I wanted to say, for how I needed to say it. But, maybe, he heard me anyway, because he kissed me again and it was a murderous kiss, chokingly deep, possessive, aggressive, the kind of kiss only a hard-ass like him could give and really mean it.

    Part of me winced away from the intensity of it, automatically resisting, but the rest of me simply melted. And I opened my mouth as wide as I could, let him have it all. His tongue scouring me until I wanted more than that even, so much more. Wanted the hard length pressed up between us. Wanted it in that great empty space inside me, to fill me with heat even though it burned me, to have him up inside me as far as he could go; the first time he had made me bleed and I wanted him to bleed me again. And not to be even the slightest bit apologetic this time, to feel marginally bad about it, like he had then. But to take it as his due, call it vengeance or not. 

    Finally, I tore my mouth away from him, from the drowning, and instead moved to lick down the side of his neck, devouring salt and sweat. Pausing to bite at his collarbone, something I knew that he liked, that turned him on. All sharp teeth and rasping tongue. Like he¹d been raised to enjoy the feel of feral creatures beneath him. Taming what could not be tamed, but could be sublimated if you really knew how and had what it took.

    I had to admit. He had what it took.

    At least, what it took to take me.

    I managed to reach one nipple, to suck and swirl on it for a few paltry seconds, before it proved too much. Before it proved his undoing and my own. He let out a sound, half-growl, half-groan, and then the floor came up to hit me. His full weight landed on me a half-second later and made me entirely too aware of how hard and uncomfortable it was, that I¹d somehow ended up partially on and partially off the rug.

    A sensation I quickly lost track of as a sudden liquid heat came down on one of my own nipples, as teeth bit and tore and twisted, as a wayward tongue lapped at the sting. Not an apology by any means for the pain, simply an accent.

    And then hands were skimming over the rest of me, hard enough to rearrange skin over muscle, muscle over bone. Some slight turn at landscaping before the architect moved on to some much needed interior redecorating.

    Without thought, my legs came up of their own accord, spreading themselves for him. And I threw my head back and let my hand sink down as well to rest on the floor to one side, palm upwards, fingers curved up around emptiness. Showing him all that I had and more. Letting him see and touch and have whatever he wanted, as if he wouldn¹t just damn well walk off with it anyway.

    I don¹t know what my face looked like to him, but his was dark with hunger, almost as suffused with blood as that straining cock. Heavy blood, tainted now, but still strong, more than enough to do the job. And it might have been a dream, what had happened the other day, his weakness and how he had been brought down by something so small, how he had all but been destroyed; surely, nothing could get a man like this down for long if at all, surely nothing could ever have made him whimper, let alone surrender.

    Like I whimpered and surrendered as those hands finally found my own cock, wrapped rough fingers around it just past the point of pain, and worked me once, twice, half a dozen times. Brutal strokes, almost cruel. Seemingly impersonal, as if he were simply priming a pump. It was agonizing and electric at the same time, the impulse to jerk away from that grip warring with the urge to push into it even harder. Hard enough for that pain to peak, for that pleasure to spiral up out of control.

    But he would never let me go so easily, would never let it happen before he took his own needs out of me. A supreme selfishness for which I was usually grateful. Afterwards. Right at the moment, though, he was a bastard, especially when he gave my cock one last tug and squeeze and abandoned it. Ignored how it almost seemed to try to follow him as he shifted over on top of me, brought his mouth down on mine. Swallowed me up, ragged breath and sullen moan of protest and clashing teeth and tongue and all.

    I tried to keep my eyes open, but found them sinking shut beneath the onslaught. Blinding me to the look in his own eyes, to what I didn¹t want to see and what I couldn¹t afford to witness. His body was more than enough, his sheer solidity, the smell and taste and texture of him--salt and sweat and the faint traces of some expensive cologne, musk and citrus at the same time--the sticky trail his cock made as it slid across my belly. The way his tongue took me as well, stroking and jabbing and slicking across my own, across every inch of my mouth. Hot, so hot, a furnace, but one that had never touched my own cock, that had never deigned to take me inside and likely never would, especially now. Especially after what I had done to him and what I nearly had done.

    I¹d sucked him once or twice in the beginning, but he¹d never gotten around to returning the favor before I¹d been forced to flee into the shadows. And, now, time and damage didn¹t allow the option. Hardly allowed for kisses, if you could even give the devouring force of what he was doing to me such an inconsequential name. To give life, to take a life, to raise a fire in the dark and damn the consequences. To claim what had already been damned, as if it were still worth claiming.

    He pulled his mouth away from mine and it was almost a tearing sensation, one that left me open-mouth and gasping. My hand half coming up before I could stop it, as if to grasp him, to pull him back to me. But he wasn¹t going anywhere. And I should have know that. I should have...expected the sudden urge that shook him and shook me, the fingers that skimmed across the head of my cock and stole the damp desire that had risen there. That moved to spread it between my upthrust thighs, down in the dark, in the cold and in the heat.

    Two fingers slicking and curling up inside me, easier than before, just the faint edge of a burn. Of a pull. The thumb pressing down on the sensitive skin just above, as if he would pinch me between them, hold me quite literally by the balls, or by the next best thing to them. I hissed as those finger dug down and into me at the same exact time, a hard grip, hard hands, callused and strong and plain and eminately useful, as if he hadn¹t spend the last ten years or more hiding behind some desk. Hiding who and what he was from the powers-that-be. It was a real kick. They should be more afraid, more respectful, of him, and they would be if they had any sense, if they¹d ever seen him like this, seen him as I¹d seen him. As I¹d felt his strengths and fallen to them, seen his weaknesses and found in them a skewed reflection of my own.

    I opened my eyes but could see nothing of myself in his, at least while he worked his fingers inside me, blunt force, blunt trauma, impossible to run away from. To ignore. Anymore, than I could ignore the cock that he eventually brought to bear on that same tender spot. It was slick, too, but with his own liquids, his own demand. If he was smart he would have slipped a rubber on first--you never know where I might have been, what I might have been up to--but nothing about this was smart or even sane so what the fuck. Not that I had been with anyone, but I¹d never tell him that. Never give him the cure or curse of that particular brand of satisfaction.

    But there was no more hesitation, no more preparation. He just pushed in and in hard as you please and I winced even as I pushed back, rising up to meet him, to help drive him home. To take him all in. One great gulp, wrenching and wonderful at the same time. Sweat breaking out at the back of my neck, my legs shaking a little as the force of it cracked them even wider. Threatened to split me right open.

    It was a feeling I could never deny, could never quite forget, even when I felt like I should. That it would have been the correct and the clever thing to do. The one that might help keep me alive.

    Except that it was only in a moment like this that I was alive. That I could feel myself breathing and sense my heart beating and my flesh tingling, an itch and a scratch just below the surface, as if something there was straining and struggling to get out. A heat and a horror and a want and a will. A heat matched by the shocking heat of this man inside me and a trembling horror at the sheer size and steel of him, that it could ever get into me at all, let alone that I could take it. It scorched me and how I wanted it and more, so much more. Wanted the straight clarity of those brown eyes on me and the compression of that hard mouth and all his anger and his calm and his mockingly mute promises of devotion, both to making me hurt and to making me safe.

    More illusions, but sometimes that was all you had anymore.

    All you were allowed.

    Then his balls were resting against my ass, his cock impressively far up inside me, so real, so solid, throbbing as I throbbed, as I arched up and felt it move within me, slide another tiny notch deeper. Touching the bare edge of that empty place. And I didn¹t have to see it to imagine its shape, its color, the flare of that great head and the beat of those veins all along its swollen length, purple and stricken and savage.

    I gasped, then gasped again as he ground it down into me, ground me down beneath it. His hands sliding up to grab my shoulders--one infinitely more careful than the other--and hold me for him, to him. As if I¹d ever want to leave him, let alone escape from this.

    Still, his first real thrust caught me off guard as it always did. Driving an actual groan out of me, a little with pain, a little with pressure. A low groan, half-protesting it seemed, but still a groan.

    He paused then, as if to survey the results of his effort, and his fingers tightened on my flesh. He tilted his head at me and now there was something in his eyes after all, a heat and a possessiveness, a hunger and a sullen blaze of hatred for that same hunger. Or a burning dislike, at the very least. And I wasn¹t sure if it was for me or for the very fact that he had to need anything or anyone at all. Least of all someone to fuck.

    Skinner had never struck me as a man who liked to just give it away. He always seemed more like a "pay through the nose" kinda guy. As if you wouldn¹t really appreciate it unless it cost you something. A fair price to be sure--he was that, too, at least generally speaking--but still a price.

    I knew what my price was to come here. I didn¹t know for sure what his was to let me in. And, maybe, just maybe, I didn¹t really want to.

    Abruptly, he pulled back--almost all the way--and pushed in again, slow and slow this time, his eyes watching me the whole while. Watching the effect that that big cock of his had on me as it smoothly slid home, as if he hadn¹t quite gotten enough of it all the times before. And I felt right and truly caught, unable to hide a wince, a shudder, a soft sound. Unable to tear my own eyes away, though I suspected that they were revealing too much in that instant, way too much.

    If his eyes were possessive, then what were mine? Could he see me falling in them? Could he see that sharp edge, companion to his own?

    Or did he see nothing. Just empty holes where a man¹s soul should be, black as night and quick as sin. A darkness built up from layers upon layers of lies that had once protected the last gasps of a dying man--a man I couldn¹t even hardly remember now, except in fleeting dreams, fleeting snips and scraps of memory--and now only served to hide the fact that he had long since expired, that he just didn¹t know he should damn well lay down and die already.

    Necrophilia, thy name is Walter Skinner.

    I closed my eyes then as that thought sank in, as the realization came to me that the man above me was in a terrible way simply fucking the dead. Maybe, even fucking his own death. The only real way he could get back at it. At me. At them. At the whole goddamn well-and-truly-fucked-in-the-head universe.

    And, this time, I didn¹t make a sound, didn¹t react at all, as he pulled out again and sank in. As I felt his balls, huge and hairy and swollen with seed, press up against me. I was too busy simply feeling him, smelling him, hearing him. His light and his life, sweat slicking lightly across his skin, the grip and pull of his muscles as he shifted, the weight of his bones pinioning my own, his breath even warmer than his skin, hitching out only slightly more rapid than normal. He was so strong and so real, so very alive, as if he didn¹t know he was a dead man, too.

    As if there was no way in hell that he was ever going to just lay down and die. Not now and not ever. Even if his own blood and body should turn against him. Even those he once trusted.

    One long slow pull out and one long slow push in. Slide out and slide in. Over and over. Never changing speed, never hurrying. All the time in the world. As if he wanted to feel every last inch of me. Or make me feel every last inch of him. From slick swollen knob to massive root. A hurt and a pleasure so tender it was almost a hurt, as well.

    And it never been like this before, either. It had always been quick, hard, fast, brutal. Sometimes a dab of lube to do you and sometimes no more than some spit and polish. Pain tearing its way to pleasure. To an ecstasy just bearly on the edge of agony. Certainly sore and limping away afterwards. Sometimes a shade more than that--a bit swollen, even. Always unforgettable. Undeniable.

    I wasn¹t sure if I liked this. I wasn¹t sure if I could handle this. A broken nose, a hard fist to the stomach, being knocked to the floor and having my jeans yanked down, yeah, but not this...this calm, this almost-gentleness. Being taken, but not being ripped apart in the process.

    But I was trapped in it now. Trapped with him, and I didn¹t want to fight anymore. Even though it was likely to bring out his own cruel streak, to make him fuck me as he used to. As he ought to.

    So I rose up for the next stroke, gave myself over to it fully, and reached up a blind hand to touch him. To run my own fingers across his chest, feeling the heave and flow of his breath, hair and muscle and the solid plate of breastbone, and finally along his throat. Up to cup around the back of his neck, feeling sweat pooling there, hot and liquid. Wanting suddenly to drink it, to drink him. To take something of him into myself, willingly and deliberately. Something that had nothing to do with regrets or possession or hurts or wrongs. With broken, bloodied fingers and long falls through consuming darkness.

    With the impact that ate your soul right up out of you.

    And he bent with my needs, with the gentle insistent urging of my few fingers. His mouth coming down to mine, opening to my tongue. Letting me inside. Letting me take what I needed. His cock moving in silent counterpoint, quicker now, sharp little jumps inside me. Every couple of jabs taking me like a live wire, hitting just the spot to make the pleasure spin and spiral. Twisting at my heart and lungs as if they were somehow tied to the same string. Puppet-pleasure, worked by big hands, by a big stick, to speak and move and dance and dangle. To be mouthpiece for another¹s desire. 

    And I stabbed back at him, licking and biting slightly. Touching and tasting both his lips, his teeth, his thick tongue and rough palate. Stealing the moisture of his mouth as I planned on stealing the brilliant power of his cock. Every last little drop of it, milky white with purity and salty with pleasure.

    His mouth tasted of salt, too, and, more faintly, of coffee. I hadn¹t noticed it before, but now I savored it. Sucked it away. Wondered what whiskey would taste like from the same mouth, my familiar two fingers worth taken straight from the source. Mouth to mouth, a drunken exchange.

    And, now, the hand on my left shoulder also moved. Came to slide up the side of my neck, to graft large fingers across the back of my head. Compressing through short short hair to the skull below, holding me even tighter to his mouth. Holding me to his tongue and to a series of long, relentless strokes inside me. Not slow, now, not by any means. But not frantic either, as if he could go at it, at me, all night yet. Displaying wicked control. Vicious strength. Vengeance beyond price.

    My thighs straining as he took me, as he condensed my world down to just two things. The consumption of his mouth and the force of his blows on my bowels. Darkness all, but he drove them with his light, with his purpose, sweat building between us as we slid wet belly to wet belly. My fingers tightening at the same time as his, winding down, our teeth jammed up together, our lips warring. Our tongues dipping back and forth, tangling and stroking...and if he tasted of coffee, what did I taste of?

    Was it of his best whiskey or something else entirely? Something dark and earthy and evaporating hotly, wetly on the tongue. Did I taste of blood and other, even more unsavory things--of lies and death and a little black box, little black killing machines--or did he taste only blackness, emptiness, what remained when all else was gone.

    And I could feel it coming and I wanted it and didn¹t want it at the same time. Wanted him and hated him at the same time. Both for what he¹d done to me and for what I¹d been forced to do to him. To others like him.

    But some things were inexorable, impossible to resist, even as your very dread of them drove you to actions and thoughts and feelings that you never would have thought yourself capable of. Let alone capable of living with. Even enjoying, if that was the word for such a dark and distant pleasure. For what it felt like to live when you wanted to die, and to die a little inside every time you had to pull a trigger or plant a bomb, to lie, to torture the innocent and the guilty alike. To murder a man and then bring him back, like a magic act you just hadn¹t got quite right just yet.

    To come to him in the night and expect anything other than vengeance.

    To need so damn much, let alone to receive...

    Weight shifted on top of me, in me, and I opened my eyes before I could stop myself. Opened my eyes to the tearing away of his mouth as he pulled back a little to look at me, simply look at me, his eyes looking almost black in that moment, their sheet intensity driving into me as hard as his cock. And, minutely, I was aware of each separate trickle of sweat on his face, of the wetness and the red and slightly swollen lips that still hovered so close to mine, that suddenly parted to reveal a flash of brighter teeth. Of the quick heat of his breath on my skin and how I couldn¹t help but suck it right down, that I was sucking him down into my own desperate lungs. 

    His throat worked then, a heavy swallow that I felt clear through me and suddenly I was aware of the prickly heat and tickle of my own sweat--on my face, gathering at the small of my back, of how his hands slid and slicked through it, slid and slicked all over me even as they held me to him, to that steadily driving cock--and the smell of musk and sex and sweat that was rising between us abruptly all but choked me, the mingled smell of him and the smell of me and of what we were doing together. Of how he was taking me and how I couldn¹t get away and how much it hurt and how much it...didn¹t...

    And my stomach abruptly heaved and twisted with a black, blindingly sharp and almost overwhelming wave of panic. I began to struggle, to push up at him, but it was like trying to move a stone, a rock, a fucking mountain, and he was already reaching down, easily snagging my cock with one of those big hands, imprisoning it in coarse fingers. Stroking me, milking me, making me shudder and arch up into his touch, even as he forced himself faster inside me, against me. Slamming into my hips, into my still-resisting flesh, as if he could force the bones to simply shatter, as if he wanted to smash me into smaller and ever smaller pieces. To break me down and push me back to dust and blood, to a simple, primal and unspeakable need.

    "Please," I said, I gasped, the word catching in my throat and stealing the last of my breath away before I knew what it was doing to me. What it might mean to him.

    "Fuck," he hissed in return, super-heated air and spit and drops of wayward sweat flying across my face. Stinging at my eyes. Draining down into my mouth, bits and pieces of him mingling with my own. "Fuck..."

    And then I couldn¹t help but hang on, couldn¹t do anything but hang on, as his hand compressed to the point of pain on my cock--as if to squeeze the blood and strength right out of it--and he pulled back out of me so far I felt the wetness of his cock head briefly before it came thundering right back up inside me. Before his entire not inconsiderable length rammed home and his hips twisted, the muscles of his back, his ass, his whole body clenching as if to keep it fixed there forever. Tabbed right up into that dead place inside me.

    A place that was abruptly flooded with light, with heat, with all the intensity of this other man¹s will to live, to survive, to never give up. My vision rocketed to red instantly, a caustic and deadly color, then flashed to pure and liquid white, as almost-cruel fingers slid and twisted and attempted to steal my own life away. Tore pleasure and pain in equal measure out of my suddenly jolting, screaming cock. Surge after surge, as if his own hot seed was shooting straight up and through me, forcing itself right back out to wash across those relentless fingers. More his than my own ever could be. 

    I still couldn¹t breath and I was dizzy, almost sick with it, but it didn¹t seem to matter so much anymore. Nothing else seemed to matter, even my own mute terror of a moment ago. My flesh hadn¹t broken after all, but everything else did. The past, the future, all that I was and all I would ever be was ripped right along the seams and fell away, down and down into the dark. Down into a pair of brown eyes. Into a mouth that slowly returned to my own, that settled and gentled over my lips and finally gave me a reason to breathe again.

    His weight no longer a rock, fixed and frightening, but a blanket. A comfort. Muscles in his ass flexing a second time, holding that massive cock thick and steady inside me as one last and tiny flutter came from deep inside. Fingers painted with my own come playing over my cock, squelching and stroking in the sticky warmth. As if he wanted to tease yet another drop or two out of me as well, every last little bit he could get. That he felt he was entitled to.

    And I would have given it to him if I could. If I felt I could do anything in that moment but gasp for more of that overheated and so precious air and shake inside and feel every muscle in my body sliding inevitably towards personal oblivion.

    One kiss, long and slow and steady as the rest of him, as I was not, and then he was pulling back. Back, but not out. Those brilliant teeth pausing to nip at the very tip of my nose, a playful gesture that felt almost unbearably tender. That made my eyes sting again, though, this time, not with sweat. But the tears--if that¹s what they were--didn¹t fall and I knew that they wouldn¹t, that they couldn¹t, and that he wouldn¹t ever see them, not really, caught up in his own aftermath or not, and that was all right. That was as right as it could ever get.

    That this was as all right as it could ever get. Fleeting and fragile as it was. And as false.

    But I closed my eyes, my mind, to that thought--that horrifying and inevitable knowledge--and simply arched my throat. Baring myself further to him. To the man who had taken me, who had remolded me with his own flesh. And I felt his cock twitch inside me again as he moved, as he bent to take my throat between his teeth. Half a kiss and three fourths a bite.

    Not enough to draw blood, but more than enough to get a taste for it.

    And, before I realized it, I was running my hand through his remaining fringe of hair, up and over the sweating smooth expanse of his head. Holding his mouth to my skin, those lips, those teeth, that sweet-sharp pleasure. Of being possessed. Being needed, being wanted, being...something other than a rat on the run.

    Ruined and dirty and desperate.

    His mouth moved downwards slowly to map the bones of my shoulder--the safe one, the whole one--and then he was lifting up again, lifting off me, and his cock slid out with a wet ease that almost made me feel like crying again. That made me want to roll him over and drive myself back down on him. Just to get him, to get something, back inside me again. Anything to drive back the dark a moment or two longer. To make this feeling, this boneless and almost-pure sensation, last.

    But he was already turning away, getting to his feet, no doubt expecting me to do the same. Sweat gleaming on his body as he ran a hand loosely across the back of his neck, as his head bowed down, his eyes searching. And I almost made a sound of protest as he bent and snatched up his pants again, started to get back into them. Turning half back towards me in the process.

    My eyes were immediately caught by his cock, still slightly hard, reddened and slick with faint traces of come, and I pushed to my own feet, to my knees, without thinking. Without preamble or consideration for how close I was coming to going too far, pushing too much. Betraying myself.

    I opened my mouth, but he was already pausing, looking down at me, and his face was impassive. No emotion at all, not even in those brown eyes. His mouth already edged with hard lines.

    It was a dangerous look--the look of the man who usually knocked me around, who would have few if any qualms about locking me up and leaving me to the tender mercies of my own employers such as they were--but I suddenly found that I didn¹t care. That I only wanted to stay a little longer. To be someone else a little longer. To remember better times and better things.

    I didn¹t reach out for him, but his eyes narrowed slightly, consideringly, and then he let his pants fall back to the floor beneath him and stepped back towards me. Looked down at me with those still eyes, that tight mouth, and then nodded. The movement so small that if I hadn¹t been looking for it, waiting for it, I might never have seen it at all.

    I didn¹t dare a smile, but he must have seen something in my eyes, because his face slowly relaxed a little and he straightened a touch, let out a long soft breath. Let out another as I bent forward and put my tongue to his cock. To the tip of that flaring head. Tasting the last of him, tasting what the rest of my body had accepted.

    And this wasn¹t safe either, but I didn¹t fucking care. I couldn¹t find the strength for it. For worrying about anything beyond tonight, beyond the man in front of me and how I wanted to make him feel. How I wanted to make him forget as well.

    The least I could do. No matter that it could never make up for the rest. Not in a million goddamned fucking years.

    He was still mostly soft, but I took him in anyway. Ran my tongue around and around and then just took him straight down. And it was almost a benediction to feel his hands settle on the sides of my head, to feel those fingers digging in. Not hard, but determined. Certain. Like he knew there was no way in hell that I¹d pull away now, that I¹d ever imagine leaving him like this. 

    Especially now that he was hardening again, pretty right damn quickly for an old man, for someone who¹d been all but stapled to his desk for the past ten years. His cock beginning to fill my mouth, to stretch out my lips, knocking with gentle force at the back of my throat as I took him deep over and over again. Deeper than was comfortable.

    And the man had amazing control, even in this, even more than he had years ago. The last time I¹d done this for him. At his instigation I believe.

    He didn¹t move at all--not even to work my mouth over him with his grip on my head-- let alone to thrust, though it must have been all but impossible not to. No, the only release he allowed himself was the occasional sound, little catches of breath and even softer moans. As if fearful of being caught and punished for anything more, though by whom I had no idea.

    Certainly, not by me. Who was, even now, finding myself getting just as turned on by sucking his cock as by having him fuck me.

    And he must have been somewhat aware as well, because he suddenly shifted a little, changing his balance, and his foot moved to brush across my own growing erection. Brushed and stroked and pressed. The skin there nearly as rough and callused as his hands. Not as graceful, but good enough. Certainly good enough to make me groan around a mouthful of cock and buck up against that steadily working foot. 

    We never really got into any kind of rhythm, but it didn¹t seem to matter. I could taste him--to be honest, he was all I could taste, all I could smell, all I could see--and his hands still held me as if they could do no less and I could feel him beginning to tremble, to quake, to shake. And it was all the warning I got, as heat suddenly poured into my mouth, a torrent, thick and rich and bitter. And I took it all as best I could, letting it all but overwhelm me. Letting it choke me.

    Wanting to drown.

    But then he was yanking himself away, careless even of my teeth, and those hands went to grasp my shoulders, to push me back down to the floor. And, fool that he was, blind and deaf and dead already even if his body hadn¹t quite caught up to his fate, he slid down me and sucked in my own cock. His mouth achingly hot, his teeth scraping along my length--deliberately, demandingly--his tongue delving down and then returning to press into the tenderest part just below the head. To flick and nip and wrangle a moan out of me that twisted me into an even tighter knot inside than I would have thought possible. A knot that tightened instantly on my cock, a deathly sweet chokehold.

    And I knew I wasn¹t going to last either, maybe even less time than he had, but I didn¹t have it within me to make the attempt to try and fight it off this time. To do anything else but simply accept it. To accept what he was doing to me. 

    What he had always done to me.

    What I let him do.

    The pleasure even more akin to pain this time as it burst from me just a few eternally brief moments later, as he drank it all down with one great gulp after another. Like it was the absolute best thing he¹d ever tasted. As if he¹d been thirsty for so long he couldn¹t bear to lose even one paltry drop.

    Not raising his mouth from me until my cock was completely deflated, was lying loose and lax across his tongue like the beaten thing it was. Then he gave it one last lick and tickle and let it, let me go. And there was no expression on his face at all as he leaned back and settled on his knees and ass on the floor. As he straightened and his eyes passed from the root of me to my face. To my own eyes.

    The silence that dragged between us was deadly, a coiled snake, thrumming and costly-cool. Shimmering scales suddenly passing over both our eyes, its edges stinging and sharp, and I was almost blind from the pain of it and suspected that he was the same. Blind to what had to happen next, and yet knowing there was no other way all the same. No other option. Not anymore. If there ever could have been.

    "Get out," he said at last. His voice mockingly soft. More of that snake¹s hiss. 

    I stared back at him, up at him, but he didn¹t blink. Didn¹t bother to wipe the evidence of his own pain from his eyes. Not that he would let himself cry either. Probably not even in the heart of the night, when he was all alone once more with his fears and his regrets and his helpless anger.

    "Go on," he added, and this was even softer.

    "Yeah," I said, and the word was the softest of all. Hardly more than a tendril of breath, twisting and smoky and torn.

    He got to his feet and didn¹t bother to look for his pants this time, let alone take the time to try and put them on. He just went and laid down on the couch, one of his arms coming up to lay across his face, hiding his eyes. 

    I dressed quietly, quickly. Trying not to look at him. To look at much of anything.

    When I was finally put back together--clothes, arm, gun, dignity, such as it was--only then did I turn and walk over and stand just beyond the coffee table. Keeping it between me and the man lying naked on his couch, each breath sounding like it was an effort no matter how even it was.

    My own breathing wasn¹t much better, though it too had that illusion of calm, of certainty. An acquired talent--I wondered just where and when he¹d learned it. In the Marines, maybe, or as a field agent in the FBI. Perhaps from all the years of staring at Fox Mulder¹s expense reports, a heart attack in the offing for the average supervisor.

    Of which Skinner was not, and likely had never been.

    He didn¹t move, though he must have been aware of my scrutiny. And, oddly enough, though I was now dressed again and armed, it didn¹t feel like I had the advantage of him. That he had the slightest bit of vulnerability. And that both scared and soothed me. Made me want to turn and run away as hard and as far as I could and never look back, and yet, at the same time, it was all I could do not to stay, to step around that damn coffee table and let him enfold in his arms again, to crush me, to keep me. Even if it hurt me more than anything else ever had.

    Even if it destroyed me.

    I opened my mouth, words hovering there just out of reach--words I¹d long thought I¹d lost the meaning of, let alone the capability of saying--but, in the end, I couldn¹t get them out. Couldn¹t let them go. It wasn¹t as if they would be enough, anyway. Nothing would ever be enough, not after what I¹d done and who I¹d become.

    It was my time to turn away now, my vision blurring a little around the edges again as I headed for the door. Headed back to the place I belonged now. 

    Pausing with my hand on the knob as I heard a whisper behind me, a soft sound. A breath taken in and released again, heavier than before. A sigh. A real sigh. Long and slow and infinitely sad.

    "Be careful."

    I heard him say it, but couldn¹t believe it. Wouldn¹t believe it. Couldn¹t afford it. Not if it killed me.

    As it killed me to go ahead and turn that knob, to open that door, to walk outside and close it again behind me. To walk down that hall. The elevator right there to greet me, to drop me nearly seventeen floors down before my stomach could quite find its way back. Before I realized that I wasn¹t breathing right myself. That I didn¹t want to fucking breath at all. Didn¹t want to go on and couldn¹t go back and when the door opened it was to familiar blackness, wrapping itself up around me like cold black leather, like the weight of a gun and the pain of an arm no longer there and a life unlived and barely mourned.

    Barely missed. Except by one other.

    My victim. My savior.

    My...one remaining friend.


End file.
